Typically, customers, when shipping items through one or more intermediaries, such as, for example, shipping services, want assurance of the integrity of the items, and will hold an intermediary accountable if the items are tampered with or lost. A package shipped nationally or internationally may be subject to tampering at various locations throughout its route, including for example, at a manufacturing facility, initial and intermediate shipping facilities, distribution facilities and point of sale locations. Some products of a relatively sensitive nature that are shipped, including, for example, pharmaceuticals, toys, and automotive and aircraft parts can cause harmful health and/or safety risks if tampered with.
Known attempts at preventing loss and/or tampering of packages include labeling or tagging the outside of a package. Such labeling or tagging techniques including, for example, bar codes, holographic labels, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, etc., have been used with some success. However, these codes, labels, tags, etc., can be lost, stolen or duplicated, since they are located on the outside of a package.